In a modern active society, people are increasingly seeking enjoyable ways to spend their leisure time. The popularity of water sports has risen significantly due to promotion of healthy active lifestyles and better access to beaches. Most water sports can be enjoyed at little or no cost, contributing to a growing number of people enjoying the water on a daily basis. Many water activities use a flotation device to assist a user in remaining on the water for prolonged periods as well as to aid in catching and riding waves. Typical flotation devices include surfboards, shorter body or ‘boogie’ boards, paddle boards, kayaks and boats.
Many of these activities involve catching waves into the shore. In doing so, the device can often become damaged though crashing onto rocks and collisions with other such devices. Damage may also occur during transit of the flotation device. Boats may collide with floating debris or with other boats or mooring structures.
Damage usually results in one or more holes in the device or at least a breach of the protective outer surface thereof. Unfortunately, a hole in the exterior of a device, such as a surfboard, allows water to ingress to the core thereby destroying the integrity of the structure and its consequential floating capacity. Generally, scratches and cuts in the outer layer of the boards, particularly those made of fibreglass, render the board useless if water is allowed to enter the core.
Permanent repairs can be made by filling the holes, usually with the aid of fibreglass bonding kits. However, this resin-based approach requires a large amount of time to process the damaged area and recondition the board, thereby immediately stopping its use until the board is permanently repaired. It is not uncommon for the board to be out of use for a week or more.
Water sports enthusiasts, most particularly surfers, have attempted to address this problem by using temporary fixes such as filling a hole with ‘surf wax’ ordinarily applied to create a non-slipping surface in the water. Unfortunately, the wax is very difficult to remove when the board is taken for repair and requires extra board removal in the process. Additionally, the wax does not create a perfect seal to keep the water out of the board, and thus water ingress damages the wood rails and foam inlays within the fibreglass.
An alternative approach is to use an epoxy stick to fill in damaged areas, however this still requires a number of hours to allow it to set prior to board use.
Another available repair kit is based on microlite putty using ketone solvents and sanding, however such putty kits are unsuitable for use on Styrofoam-based blank flotation devices which make up the major share of the surf board market. The sanding and other process time also means a user cannot continue in the water for an extended period after the damage occurs.